Bahrain Center for Human Rights

The government of Syria should immediately and unconditionally release the arbitrarily detained human rights defender Mazen Darwish and his colleagues Hani Al-Zitani and Hussein Ghareer, 61 human rights organizations said on 17 March 2014.

The protest movement, which started peacefully and remains largely peaceful, has witnessed a slow turn of splinter groups towards the use of violent tactics. Bahraini rights groups stated that the government bears full responsibility for the escalation of violence in the country given its relentless crackdown.

Bahraini security forces arrested photographer Sayed Ahmed Al-Mousawi, 25, after raiding his home at dawn on 10 February 2014.

Poet Ayat Al-Qurmuzi, 23, was summoned for interrogation on 3 February for a poem she recited at an opposition rally on 24 January in Sitra, while journalist Abbas Al-Murshid was charged with ‘insulting the king’ and summoned for trial on 27 March 2014.

Just a few days before the third anniversary of the Bahraini uprising, King Hamad bin Isa Al-Khalifa approves a new amendment to article 214 allowing up to seven years in prison for insulting him.

195 civil society organisations from around the world have called on the UN to put government accountability and independent media at the centre of a new framework for global development.

A Bahraini court has denied yet another request by imprisoned human rights defender Nabeel Rajab for early release although he has met all three conditions outlined for approval.

Following the criminalisation of peaceful protest in Egypt in November 2013, 57 organisations and individuals release joint statement against arrests of Egyptian bloggers and political activists.